


Emotional Detachment

by IAmTheBadWolf1990



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, One Shot, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 11:44:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10019177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmTheBadWolf1990/pseuds/IAmTheBadWolf1990
Summary: Everyone reacts differently.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the first episode of series three and this evil little plot bunny jumped into my head and would not go away so I had to write it down. Plus I'm a sucker for angst.
> 
> Warning! This story deals with rape and trigger warnings apply. And if you have yet to see anything to do with Broadchurch series three, those warnings apply for that as well.
> 
> This story was written as a platonic relationship but can be more if you wish.

Alec Hardy glared at the sun as its light started to appear over the horizon. It was an unwelcome reminder of how early it was and how little sleep he had gotten. Not that he usually got much sleep anyway. The case he (and every other police officer in Broadchurch) was working on was a horrid one. A sex predator was on the loose somewhere in this small town and leads as to his identity were wearing thin.

It was because of this case that Hardy was currently standing at his partner’s front door waiting for her to answer. Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller had texted him less than half an hour ago and had dragged him out of bed with just three capitalised words. _MY HOUSE. NOW._

Miller had been known to call on him at any hour of the day when she had discovered something vital to a case so Hardy had not been too worried about the text. In fact, he felt the opposite. He felt hopeful. If Miller had found some piece of evidence to help this dying case along, it would be worth the sacrifice of a few hours sleep.

When no one came to the door, he knocked again. This time someone answered. It was Miller’s son, Tom. ‘Your Mum in?’ asked Hardy stepping past the teenager. ‘She told me to meet her here.’

Tom just nodded silently and pointed down the hall. Hardy gave the boy a curious glance before heading further into the house. ‘Miller?’ he half-shouted and winced at how loud his voice sounded. He didn’t want to wake Fred.

Suddenly the door to his right opened and Miller stood before him, wrapped in a fluffy pink towel. He didn’t have much time to process his colleague's choice of attire however before she was shoving evidence bags into his hands. ‘Here. Take these into the station and get Forensics to go through them,’ she said as she passed him yet another bag. ‘See if they can find anything that matches what they got from Trish. Swabs are in there too. I’m going to go have a shower.’ Before Hardy even had a chance to speak, she had slammed her bedroom door in his face, leaving him to stand there, looking rather dumbstruck.

It was a few more moments of confused silence before he was brought out of it by Tom’s small voice. ‘She was crying when she got home,’ was all he said before retreating into his own bedroom.

Hardy looked down at the evidence bags in his hands, the evidence bags full of clothes - Miller’s clothes – and everything fell into place. He looked back up to the door and could hear the sound of the running water coming from Ellie’s ensuite. His hands began to shake and he quickly moved to the lounge room so he could place the bags on the coffee table and sit down.

He put his head in his hands, remembering the hope he had felt five minutes ago, his desperate wish for a lead – _any_ lead - on the case. He felt sick.

Not Ellie. Hadn't she already been through enough? Why did it always have to be her?

He looked at the bags of evidence that she had given him and realised that they weren’t evidence bags at all. They were just ordinary vacuum-sealed bags used for packing. The swabs were real enough though. He looked away from the sight and back to the floor, still not being able to deal with the proof of what had happened to his partner.

He knew what he _should_ do. He should do exactly what Ellie had told him to do and take the evidence to the station and give it to Forensics. But he couldn’t. Tom had retreated into his bedroom, obviously not being able to handle the truth of what he knew must have happened to his Mum, and Ellie’s Dad was nowhere in sight. She may as well have been all alone in the house and he couldn't leave her like that.

So he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Until finally he heard the sound of the shower being turned off and the soft fall of footsteps on Ellie’s bedroom floor.

It was still another five minutes before she emerged, now wearing flannelette PJs and a pink robe that matched her towel. She looked genuinely surprised to see him still there and he tried not to focus on how much that hurt. Did she really think he was _that_ much of a bastard?

‘What?’ he finally asked when the awkward silence had gotten too much for him. ‘I was hardly going to leave you, was I?’

‘Suppose not,’ was Ellie's reply and she hurriedly moved to the kitchen. ‘Tea?’

Hardy didn’t move from his spot on the couch. He wasn’t really sure of how to handle this. He had been involved in many rape cases over his career – far too many than he was would have liked, which would have been none at all – but this was different. The victim had never been someone he knew. He had always been able to create an emotional detachment from the case.

But not this time.

Ellie had already come back with a cup of tea before Hardy realised that he hadn’t answered her question. He took the offered cup without a word, feeling guiltier by the second. He should have been the one making the tea.

Ellie sat down next to him, her eyes briefly glancing towards the table full of evidence bags but then quickly darting away. ‘You should take that to Forensics,’ she said, looking away from both him and the table.

‘I already told you that I wasn’t going to leave,’ he said, somehow managing to find his voice. ‘I can call someone from the station. Get them to take it in.’

Ellie shook her head determinedly. ‘No. I don’t want anyone from the station.’

‘Ellie-’

‘Don’t!’ she snapped.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t call me Ellie. And don’t look at me like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like I’m broken.’

‘You can’t even see how I’m looking at you,’ he said, possibly a little harsher than he had meant to. He let out a sigh to try and compose himself. ‘Miller look at me,’ he said, softer this time. She reluctantly did so. ‘I’ve seen you go through hell. I’ve seen you at the worst possible time of your life. But I’ve never seen you broken. And I don’t think I ever will.’

Her bottom lip began to quiver and Hardy instinctively put down his tea and held out his arms to her. He was a little surprised at how readily she accepted his embrace and leaned against his chest. ‘Is that why you don’t want to see anyone from the station?’ he asked after a minute of just holding her as her silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘Yeah,’ she croaked out.

‘They are going to find out,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady and soothing. ‘You’re going to have to see them eventually.’

‘I know. I’m going to have to answer everybody’s questions if we are going to catch this bastard... Just not here. Not where Tom can…’ Her voice cracked and the next bit came out as a bit of a rush, as if she wanted to get it out while she still could. ‘How do I tell him?’

‘I think he figured it out himself,’ said Alec, glancing towards the hallway that led to where Tom was still locked up in his room.

‘Oh God, that’s even worse,’ sobbed Ellie before her shoulders tensed and Hardy could literally feel the anger radiating off of her. ‘We’re going to catch this bastard,’ she said with conviction.

‘Ell-’ He caught himself just in time. ‘Miller. You know they aren't just going to let you continue investigating the case. You can’t investigate your own...’ He cleared his throat awkwardly at his inability to finish that sentence.

‘I don’t care,’ said Ellie. ‘I made a promise to Trish and I am not going to let her down.’

Hardy went to argue but she cut him off. ‘I know I can’t do anything official. Especially not after what happened with Joe’s trial.’ She swallowed at the memory of her ex-husband’s crime and how her emotional attachment to the case had helped his lawyers swing the jury towards the wrong verdict. ‘But I can still do my job,’ she continued. ‘I can still help catch the man who did this.’

She looked up at him and he saw her absolute resolve and knew it was pointless arguing. ‘Okay,’ he agreed and she leant back against his chest.

‘Besides,’ she said, sounding a bit more like herself - like the Miller he had been bickering with on and off for the past three years, ‘I can’t leave you alone on this case. You don’t have the sensitivity for it.’

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this one-shot in Hardy's point of view because a) most of the show is done from his viewpoint and I wanted to keep in sync with that; and, more importantly, b) I myself have never been through an experience like this and I couldn't even begin to imagine what would go through the mind of someone who had.


End file.
